THE World Wide Web may no longer claim
it is a truly international medium after a
French judge ordered that Yahoo must bar
French users from one of its sites.

The decision that a national law must
be observed by a foreign-based Web company
could set an international precedent that
would impact on Web surfers all over the
world. The US-based, English language
Yahoo.com site was auctioning nearly 2000
items of Nazi memorabilia. This is not
illegal in the US but it is in France,
which bans the sale of material which
promotes racism.

On Monday, Judge Jean-Jacques
Gomez confirmed a ruling he made on 22
May. The final decision had been postponed
to allow a panel of three computer experts
to assess whether the ban was technically
feasible.

US-based Yahoo had argued it was
impossible to bar users from a single
country. But on 6 November the expert
panel testified to the court that 90 per
cent of French users could be identified
and barred by checking their key words and
Internet Service Provider addresses.

Judge Gomez gave Yahoo 90 days to
implement a barring system. He said the
company would be fined 100,000 francs
($14,000) per day if it exceeded the
deadline. Yahoo's French site does not
auction Nazi items.

A FRENCH judge has upheld a
ruling that top website Yahoo
must prevent French users from
participating in auctions for
Nazi memorabilia, no matter where
the site hosting the auction is
based. The ruling is among the
first of its kind and could set a
major international legal
precedent.

"It's Yahoo, which catches a
lot of attention, and it's
France, not some Third World
country, so it is important",
said David Loundy, an
American expert in internet
law.

The
panel said on 6 November that
although there were technologies
that >could block internet
users in a given location from
accessing a particular site,
those technologies were not
foolproof. Mr Loundy, the
American lawyer, predicted that
companies would leap in to fill
that gap. "You'll have more
companies setting up software to
identify where users are", he
told BBC News
Online.

Judge Jean-Jacques Gomez was in
essence confirming a ruling he had made in
May, which Yahoo appealed against in
July.

90-day
deadline

The judge gave the US-based site, one
of the internet's most popular, three
months to comply with the ruling or face
fines of 100,000 francs ($12,940) per
day.

There has been no comment yet from the
website.

But the Union of
French Jewish Students (UEJF), one
of two organisations which brought the
original complaint against Yahoo in April,
welcomed the ruling.

The group's chairman, Yigal El
Harrar, said Judge Gomez's verdict
would help stop "the banalisation of the
memory of the Shoah," the name many Jews
use for the Holocaust.

Mr El Harrar also said the ruling
confirmed the UEJF position that Yahoo was
technically capable of stopping French
users from participating in auctions.

The California-based company said that
it was not technically feasible to ban
French users from participating in
auctions because it was difficult to
identify the identity or location of any
individual bidder.

Expert
advice

Judge Gomez set up a three-member
expert panel to advise him following the
company's appeal in July.

The panel said on 6 November that
although there were technologies that
could block internet users in a given
location from accessing a particular site,
those technologies were not foolproof.

Mr Loundy, the American lawyer,
predicted that companies would leap in to
fill that gap.

"You'll have more companies setting up
software to identify where users are", he
told BBC News Online.

Yahoo's French site does not offer Nazi
items for auction.

Yahoo's US site had 1,982 Nazi-related
items for auction, including armbands,
flags, hats and military decorations, at
the time of the ruling on Tuesday.

Yahoo shares fell sharply on the Nasdaq
US index of high-tech stocks following the
court ruling.

The
above news items are reproduced without editing
other than typographical